Build rental success by giving the customers more than a machine and an invoice

By Mike Wijayasundar, Director of Rental Equipment, Cooper Equipment Rentals. Published by Canadian Rental Service.

Smarter utilization and insights can turn your rental fleet into a competitive advantage

It’s 8 a.m. and your driver just delivered an excavator to a customer’s jobsite. 

The crew is behind schedule, so the machine sits idle for several days, rental charges accumulating. No one calls it off-rent, and by the time the invoice is sent, the cost has doubled and you’ve got a frustrated customer on the phone. 

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Customers paying for performance they don’t use, or don’t need, is a scenario more common than we would like to admit. 

A 20-foot scissor lift when a 15-foot would do. A compact roller that’s too small, stretching the timeline when a larger model could have finished the project faster. 

How we handle underutilized equipment shapes how customers see us, influences repeat business and affects long-term profitability. Idle machines may generate short-term revenue, but they also erode trust if customers are left paying for the wrong machine or a machine that’s not being used. 

At the same time, competing on the lowest price isn’t the solution. Because when rental rates rise, and there’s no added value, customers start to look elsewhere. When they have clearer visibility into equipment utilization, availability and performance, they can use that data to make smarter decisions on the jobsite. 

READ the full article on Canadian Rental Service.